While Record of Agarest War was just like Cross Edge in almost every way, this is another game I had up as this year’s candidate for “game that will have the same kind of reviews as Cross Edge”. Surprisingly enough, it seems like people were a bit more lenient on this one than they were with Cross Edge. Granted, it doesn’t suffer from as many problems as Cross Edge, but it’s still aiming at exactly the same audience.

I was interested in the game partly because of the Disgaea crossovers, but also because the gameplay seemed fairly solid. So I had some fairly good expectations for this.

Read on!
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jobocan Console, Games, Review, ps3

(Despite the Xbox 360 boxart here, the PS3 version is reviewed… there’s no PS3 boxart so I went with the closest thing)
Remember Cross Edge? It came out last year, and it was hated by critics and gamers overall. But I still thought it was a very fun game, there were just a lot of hurdles to jump over before really getting to enjoy it, hurdles which the average gamer or reviewer just didn’t want to bother with (which is quite understandable). And then there’s the fact that it was incredibly badly optimized, with pixelated/blurry 2D graphics and relatively long load times (even when the game was installed). It was still a fun game, with a really good battle system and lots of fun leveling systems.

This year we get Record of Agarest War. Made by the same company, and it has a lot in common. So maybe this is this year’s “Cross Edge” in a sense. It’s been out for a while now, I just took my sweet time playing it and finally getting to review it. But, from the little research I made, I found that it got more favorable reviews than Cross Edge did.

So read on and see if it really deserves the slightly more favorable reviews!

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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, Review, ps3, xbox 360

Well, just based on the premise of this game, the developers might as well have come to my house and taken my money, because it was 100% sure I’d buy it. I mean…a humorous Diablo clone, with a great graphic style and made by Ron Gilbert (one of the Monkey Island creators)? Sounds like awesomeness to me.

Read on and see if it reached my expectations!
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jobocan Console, Games, PSN, Review, XBLA, ps3, xbox 360

The PS3 is a bit low on unique and exclusive RPGs, and Last Rebellion seems to be offering something really nice. Turn-based, using a completely unique battle system, and being one of the few PS3 exclusive RPGs, it seems to be made to please PS3 users.

So does Last Rebellion really offer something fun and unique to PS3 users looking for fun exclusive RPGs?

Read on and see!
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jobocan Console, Games, Review, ps3

The other day I started randomly thinking about this: What are the gold standards in the gaming industry? What games best define their own genre? This is what I set out to figure out.

Let’s go right away and define what “Gold Standard” means. It’s pretty simple. It has to be:
1. A game that defines the genre it’s in.
2. It has to be a high-quality game/series.
3. It still has to be fun to play.
4. Of course, it doesn’t need to be the BEST in the genre, but it has to be the one to have set most of the genre’s standards.
5. It has to be an older game, as much as possible.

So read on and see what are the Gold Standards in the gaming industry! Of course, if I’m missing a genre(there’s some I didn’t put in because I either could think of any 1 game that defined the genre, or that were too similar to another genre that I didn’t need to include them), or if you think about a game that I might not have thought about for any of the categories, be sure to comment!
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jobocan Console, Games, Handheld, Opinion, Random, Rant, analysis

I don’t know that much about the Phantasy Star series, never having played the original RPG series and only playing quite a bit of Online Episode 1 and starting Episode 3 (the card game one). So I thought it would be cool to play one that was more like the original RPG series. Well, to my surprise it was anything but that. It actually plays almost exactly like the Online games. So let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised, if not a bit bummed that it didn’t end up being a regular RPG.

So, is it fun like Online, or is it just a quick cash in for PSO fans? Read on and see!
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jobocan Games, Handheld, Review, ds

The Atelier series have always been relatively traditional RPGs with quite original and fun battle systems, but with relatively heavy item creation elements to diferentiate themselves from other games of the genre. At least from my experience with the series (Atelier Iris 3 and Mana Khemia). And they were quite fun.

This is the first game on the DS to make it to America, with Atelier Lina and Atelier Lise not getting localized for unknown reasons. But maybe there’s hope for them to come now…

So, does this bring something new to the Atelier series, or is it not worthy of the name?

Read and see!
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jobocan Games, Handheld, Review, ds

I have around one month and a few days left until my fifth semester of college ends. There is only one thing that stands in the way between me and my rightfully deserved A’s : Borderlands. Ok…well maybe that and my poor study habits. Nevertheless, Borderlands is making sure that this last month full of finals, 12 page papers, and study sessions will be filled of thoughts of what quests I’ve just finished and how soon will that lovely new ‘LEVEL UP!’ icon will flash across the screen.

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Josh T. Games, PC, impressions, ps3, xbox 360

This game started out as a rumored Zelda game for some reason (because of the triforce symbol on the clock thing). It got a bit of hype because of that. What really interested me was the graphics, ad then I heard about the completely random concept. After playing the demos, I was sold.

What is it that made me fall in love with it? Read on and see!
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jobocan Games, Handheld, PSN, psp

Released last year in Japan, White Knight Chronicles is still on its way to North America.  Even if you’ve played the Japanese version, you might be interested to know that there’s a bunch of new online features coming in the NA version.

The Playstation Blog introduces us to the new features (GeoNet, Georama, and Subquests) today.

GeoNet

GeoNet is a social networking service for WKC online players, where you can meet and interact with other players to get set for multiplayer quests.

Does that mean they’ve added Facebook in WKC so that you can Facebook while you play the game?

Georama

Georama is where you can design your own “HomeTown”, which serves as a lobby for the online mode. There are 3 different fields to build your Georama in with 18 different combinations. You’ll drop in buildings, infrastructure, and even modify the earth itself. A 2D city sim this is not. Examples were shown where players could make hedge mazes or pixel art in the towns. What’s cool is you can recruit NPCs from the story mode to come live in your town. The NPCs have jobs of different levels, which will further change the town. Also, you and others can shop in the shops that you create. Up to a dozen players can enter one Georama at once, and from there you can head out questing. Hundreds (or more) parts and elements were shown – it’s pretty deep. Of note: North American players will be able to visit the Georama town of European friends, and vice versa.

I think just that alone would sell me the game. I assume this is akin to Dark Cloud’s town building system.  I love this stuff in RPG for some reason.  It was my favorite part in Breath of Fire II too.

Subquests

unlike the story mode, which centers around Leonard, you control your own avatar in this mode. As the story unfolds, quests will become available. When you are successful, you’ll accumulate points which will build your guild rank. The higher the rank, the more quests and weapons that are available for you. You can quest with friends or use the random matching system to be paired up with like minded strangers. 50 subquests will be available at launch, and new ones will be added along the way online.

And that should lengthen the game even more for those people enthusiastic enough to do more quests.

Finally, Jeff Rubenstein confirms voice chat and that it’ll be patched into the Japanese version, alongside what seems to be pre-made sentences you can use to communicate. The feature apparently is already existing in Rogue Galaxy (Live Talk feature).  The game will also feature at launch all the updates the Japanese version has seen up to today.

So there you have it folks, plenty of new bonus content for this game. Will it make up for the huge delay? You guys will be the judge.  As for me, this kind of sold me the game, whenever it’ll be out.

David A. News